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ArticleThe End of the Transgender Craze is Near
Latest article from the Substack Public, by Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag
For those of you mad at him for appearing to take credit for breaking the WPATH files, he gives a tip of the hat to feminists for being ones fighting against it for years, as well as stating the WPATH files should be put into context of a broader disclosure by whistleblowers. (Also, Alex Gutentag is a woman on his Public team. Mia Hughes writes for the Public on the topic of trans, so he might have commissioned her work on this.)
They don't seem to know Erica Anderson is a man though. Of if they do, they didn't point it out.
Link to article: https://open.substack.com/pub/public/p/the-end-of-the-transgender-craze?r=erajp&utm_medium=ios
Subtitle: The backlash against “gender-affirming care” and trans-identified males in women’s sports and prisons is accelerating
Text:
To support "gender-affirming care” is to be on the right side of history, millions believe. To be pro-transition is basically the same as being pro-gay, they believe. Whether one is attracted to people of the same sex or believes oneself to be of the opposite sex, it’s just how people are born. Trans people, including children and vulnerable adults, deserve medical care so they can assume their correct gender and deserve to compete in the sports competitions of their preferred sex.
But it’s quickly becoming apparent that “gender medicine” is on the wrong side of history.
Last week, millions of people read stories at X, the Washington Post, the Economist, the Telegraph, and even the Guardian about internal files of the leading transgender health organization, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), showing widespread medical mistreatment of children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults.
And yesterday, the UK government’s National Health Service England (NHSE) announced that it was halting the prescription of puberty blockers in government hospitals.
Of course, most Americans haven’t heard of the WPATH Files or the UK government’s decision. And, the UK government will still allow puberty blockers in private clinics, and some people in Europe had already anticipated its decision.
But the UK’s decision was far stronger than had been expected. “It’s bombastic for sure,” Dr. Erica Anderson, a former President of WPATH,” told Public. “Everyone was expecting severe limits. Total ban? No.”
Nearly 15,000 children and adolescents were in line for puberty blockers in the UK. Now, it’s likely that just a handful will receive them.
And puberty blockers aren’t the obvious first thing one would expect the UK government to ban. Far more controversial are genital surgeries on minors, which are irreversible, resulting in sterilization, and likely also cause a significant, if not total, loss of sexual function or hormones.
And because over 90% of children put on puberty blockers continue with “transition,” a ban on puberty blockers will strictly limit hormones and surgery for youth. Some adults will continue to use radical medical interventions, but the effective ban on them for young people is likely to reduce the number from tens of thousands to a few hundred.
As such, the decision by the UK government to issue far more sweeping restrictions suggests the existence of a stronger cross-party consensus within the UK government than the glitzy pro-transition PR of recent years had suggested. There is a sense in which, after years of irresponsible healthcare teenagers having a wild party, drugging kids, and experimenting on their bodies, the adults have come home and started to impose order.
Before the backlash against gender medicine was the backlash against putting transwomen/natal males in women’s prisons. Around the world, men who are caught committing crimes, including violent and sexual ones, are using“gender self-identification” to claim that they are actually women and demand to be put in women’s prisons. Many Americans are unaware that this is even occurring, much less that it brought down the Scottish government in mid-February of last year, just two weeks after its Prime Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said she had nothing to apologize for.
In terms of trans policies that cause real-world harm, women’s sports are also still an issue. Yet here, too, the backlash against natal males in female sports is gaining momentum. Former college swimming champion Riley Gaines has a new book out and is on the warpath. On Joe Rogan, Gaines told the story of how, despite having tied transwoman/natal male swimmer, Lia Thomas, the NCAA decided, on the stop, to give the one trophy to Thomas.
And the leader of the British Labour Party, Keir Starmer, said on Monday that “common sense has to prevail in terms of safety and integrity of sport” and that biological males should thus not be allowed to participate in women’s sports. Starmer pointed to the fact that some elite sports leagues are already restricting the involvement of transwomen/natal men.
As such, it’s only a matter of time for liberal-minded Americans and Democrats to hear about the changes in Europe and start to impose reforms. That may happen as early as this year if Republicans turn gender medicine and boys and men in girls and women's sports into political issues. But even if it doesn’t happen this year, it will happen soon. Every day brings more writing on the wall.
Why is that? What, ultimately, set off the chain of events leading to the end of the trans craze?
Gender Pseudoscience
A big part of the reason for the end of the trans craze is the accumulation of scientific studies, patient testimonies, and the testimonies of gender clinicians themselves.
The WPATH Files themselves should be seen in a broader context of revelations and confessions from the whistleblowers and employees of the gender medicine industry itself. The UK government shut down its leading gender clinic at Tavistock Hospital after its own employees blew the whistle. A St. Louis gender clinician last year similarly blew the whistle. One of the founders of gender-affirming care in Europe recently denounced the overuse of drugs and surgeries. Dr. Erica Anderson has argued for years that too few guardrails protect children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults.
Meanwhile, medical journals are publishing a growing number of scientific articles debunking the leading trans myths. A major Finland study found gender medicine to offer no benefits in terms of reducing suicide and suicidal feelings among people with gender dysphoria. And earlier this week, journalist Ben Ryan resurfaced a 2021 study that found that trans women who underwent genital surgery had twice as many suicide attempts after the surgery than before.
Defenders of gender medicine are responding to these revelations. In response to the WPATH Files, StatNews claimed we had exaggerated the link between hormones and cancer in trans-identified natal females.
But even a cursory review of the evidence shows that testosterone has already been linked to cancer. A 2020 paper in the Lancet found that a 17-year-old trans-identified natal female had developed liver tumors in connection to testosterone use. Although the research has been inconclusive (as we noted), another 2023 paper found multiple cases of liver tumors linked to testosterone use.
What’s more, we were not the ones to make the cancer link from the WPATH Files – it was suggested by WPATH-affiliated doctors themselves. And it turns out that testosterone can cause far worse damage to livers than we had realized. The liver is a sexually dimorphic organ, meaning it exhibits major differences in males and females.
Testimonials from medicalized trans-identified natal females suggest that the testosterone they received was associated with a risk of liver damage, including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The irony of this will no doubt be lost on activists and their allies who deny and downplay the significance of biological differences between males and females.
One of the main reasons the trans craze is coming to an end is because of the coalition of feminists, conservatives, liberals, and non-ideological professionals, intellectuals, and activists who fought for years against it. We should feel gratitude toward these individuals, particularly those who suffered greatly for their service. Trans activists destroyed the careers of journalists, academics, administrators, and anyone else who stood in the way of their agenda to transform medicine, sports, prisons, and much else. People lost their jobs in universities worldwide, particularly in North America and Europe. And many of those same people fought heroically.
While there are medical and political reasons why transgenderism is coming to an end, the underlying reason is that gender-affirming care has no basis in science. The idea that someone can change their biological sex is ungrounded from reality.
Trans activists attempted to hoist their wagon to broad public acceptance of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. Still, homosexuality is a genuine phenomenon of same-sex physical attraction. In contrast, transgenderism is an ideological movement based on the false belief that one can transform bodies, either one’s own or other people’s, into the opposite sex, or some new sex entirely.
What we are left with are people of various sexual preferences who genuinely believe, or at least partly believe, that they are the opposite sex. The desire to impose this belief on the wider society, with the help of major medical and political institutions, resulted in a spiritual cult known as “the trans movement.” Its gods are humans and our ability to perform miraculous transformations of bodies through some combination of thinking, drugs, and surgery.
To some extent, this is not new; we regularly indulge in each other’s fantasies. All around us are people who hold spiritual beliefs that many of us believe are just fantasies, while they believe the same about us.
The problem arises when those fantasies hurt others. We allow religious faiths to believe they are following the one true religion, but we don’t allow them to hurt and abuse children.
We similarly allow people to believe they are the opposite gender and to dress and live how they like, but societies will soon stop, or severely restrict, the ability of people to impose this view on others and to permanently harm the bodies of children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults. And we will soon prevent people claiming to have changed their sex from entering women’s prisons and sporting competitions.
After The Craze
Given that the transgender craze is rapidly coming to an end, it’s reasonable to wonder whether anything should be done to accelerate it. The backlash to transgenderism, after all, is gaining steam.
But something should be done because it’s not guaranteed to end quickly, completely, or well. Biden and the Democrats could resist efforts to rein in gender medicine, the destruction of girls’ and women’s sports, and the continued sending of transwomen/natal males to women’s prisons, even ones convicted for sex crimes.
We are thus faced with important questions about how to end the gender medical mistreatment scandal in the United States, and protect girls and women.
It is likely that some combination of lawsuits by regretful “detransitioners” and attorney generals, state and federal legislation, executive branch regulations, and decisions by health insurers and health care providers will all contribute to halting gender medicine and the attack on girls and women’s sports.
It could take many years and even a decade for the worst aspects of the transgender craze to be rolled back. Or, the end of transgenderism could happen quickly. Former President Donald Trump last month denounced gender medicine and may campaign on it. Already, nearly half of the states in America have banned gender medicine for children. Polls show the public turning against allowing natal males into girls’ and women’s sports. As polls continue to change, so will what politicians say.
The news from the UK hasn’t yet penetrated the cognitive bubbles of liberals, progressives, and Democrats, but it will. MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, and Washington Post may find ways to break the news gently to their readers. Over time, the media may help progressives to feel that they have always agreed with the coming reforms.
To be sure, there will likely always be people who claim to be transgender. But the mass cultural phenomenon of transgenderism, including the craze of young people claiming to be the opposite sex, and demanding drugs and surgery to change their bodies, along with the right to compete in girls’ and women’s sports, or go to women’s prisons, is coming to an end. As such, those who continue to defend it are on the wrong side of history.
So, uh, which one is it? The evil cis women glare at you because they think you're a man in the bathroom, or the evil cis women address you as "lady" or "one of the girls"? This "article" is so obviously full of lies.
The Challenges of Being Non-Binary or, How I Expect The World to Affirm my Narcissistic Delusions by Yves Reeeeeeeeeeeeeees into the void.
Non-binary genders are also associated with higher rates of self-harm and substance abuse, according to Australian research from 2020. The same study found that 70 per cent of non-binary people experienced depression, compared to 52 per cent of binary trans people.
Ooooooo, I dare the author to say that to a tim. That's a binary you're definitely supposed to acknowledge in QT, that tims have it the hardest.
‘I’m neither man nor woman, but I must pretend’ By Yves Rees October 24, 2021 — 5.00am
Before the movie begins, I duck off to the bathrooms. Down a dim corridor I find the signs: F and M. The same old binary. There’s no other choice. For the umpteenth time, I sigh. Which of two bad options to choose today? I’m neither man nor woman, but I must pretend to be one or the other if I’m to empty my bursting bladder. Outside the entrance, I hesitate, weighing up the dilemma.
The gents is emitting a miasma of stale urine, plus it probably only has one stall: what if it’s already occupied? The ladies, however, is risky. Since I cropped my hair and started binding my breasts, I’ve been attracting hostile stares from women perturbed by my presence in this feminine space. Even though I avert my eyes and scuttle straight to a stall, I feel each curious look, each cold glare, each double-take. They burn hot on my skin.
This bathroom dilemma is one of countless moments each day when non-binary people come into conflict with a binary world.
What to do? I just want to pee and then watch a movie, not have my identity scrutinised by strangers. And no matter which option I choose, I’ll be misgendering myself.
This bathroom dilemma is one of countless moments each day when non-binary people like me come into conflict with a binary world. No matter where we turn, the binary is near impossible to avoid. Clothing stores are divided into menswear and womenswear. MCs welcome “ladies and gentlemen”. When I sign up for the local Parkrun, I must declare myself man or woman. There is no third option. If I contract COVID-19, I’ll be reported as a “woman in her 30s”.
Out in the world, non-binary people are erased, wiped off the domain of the possible. We know ourselves to be neither men nor women, but the world refuses to acknowledge that people like us can even exist. Our self-knowledge is dismissed. Through the architecture of everyday life, we are made inconceivable. There’s literally no space for us.
This was brought into stark relief in early 2021, when the singer Sam Smith – who came out as non-binary in 2019 – was deemed ineligible for both the solo male and solo female artist gongs at the Brit Awards. Despite being one of the top British pop artists of recent decades, there was simply no solo artist award for which Smith could be nominated. The categories exclude them from the whole endeavour.
Then there are the assumptions people make. Each day, complete strangers presume to know our gender, slotting us into one of two boxes. At a cafe, the waiter asks, “Now, what can I get you girls? Would you like some coffees to start?” On the street, a parent shoos their child out of my way: “Careful, watch out for the lady!”
My dilemma, the non-binary dilemma, is to make my gender legible in a world that refuses to see it. The cumulative effect is exhausting. To be told, again and again, that non-binary people can’t exist, that my gender isn’t real, is like an unending sequence of paper cuts.
Our everyday speech is peppered with assumptions about the gender of people we encounter. Within half a second, without any conscious effort, our brains sort the bodies in our vicinity: M or F, male or female, he or she.
My dilemma, the non-binary dilemma, is to make my gender legible in a world that refuses to see it. The cumulative effect is exhausting. To be told, again and again, that non-binary people can’t exist, that my gender isn’t real, is like an unending sequence of paper cuts. Each cut is a minor irritant, easy to ignore. But with enough cuts, over time, you’re reduced into one big open wound, bleeding all over the place.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. We could acknowledge that gender is more varied than a crude binary. Alok Vaid-Menon, author of Beyond the Gender Binary, explains that “the real crisis is not that gender non-conforming people exist, it’s that we’ve been taught to believe in only two genders in the first place”. If the true crisis is the false belief in binary gender, the solution is to expand our imagination of what gender can be. In truth, people who are not men and women are not deluded or sick or dangerous; we’re part of the glorious variation of humanity.
Although non-binary is sometimes derided as a new fashion, diverse genders have a long history. For instance, the recent study of a thousand-year-old grave in Finland suggests that the individual in question lived outside the gender binary. The presence of feminine and masculine objects in the grave, plus physical evidence from the skeleton, led researchers to conclude that “it was a respected person whose gender identity may well have been non-binary”.
Diverse genders remain common in many cultures today. In North America, Indigenous cultures recognise “two-spirit” people who combine masculine and feminine energies. An estimated 168 Indigenous languages in the United States have terms to describe someone who is neither a man nor a woman. In Australia, First Nations people use the terms “brotherboy” and “sistergirl” to describe genders beyond the binary. Diverse genders are widespread elsewhere, including hijra in India, fa’afafine in Samoa, and ogbanje among the Igbo people of Nigeria.
As Europe colonised the world, the binary came to dominate our imaginations. But gender diversity has always been here: called different things, understood in different ways, cropping up again and again wherever there are people. It’s part of our humanity.
Non-binary people aren’t counted, so our very existence is effectively erased by the state. My life, along with other gender diverse lives, is made inconceivable. We are reduced to shadow citizens, living outside the realm of the possible.
So how many non-binary people are there in Australia today? The answer is that we don’t know – and that’s part of the problem. The Australian census only asks about sex and doesn’t collect data on gender identity, so there are no authoritative stats on the trans and gender diverse (TGD) population. Non-binary people aren’t counted, so our very existence is effectively erased by the state. My life, along with other gender diverse lives, is made inconceivable. We are reduced to shadow citizens, living outside the realm of the possible.
On a more practical level, our absence from demographic data also means that TGD people cannot be allocated the funding and services we so desperately need. Because we’re not counted, our requirements for appropriate healthcare and specialised amenities can be overlooked. All in all, when you’re non-binary, the world can feel a hostile place.
All TGD people face stigma and prejudice, but it’s generally easier for our binary world to understand and accommodate those who transition from one side to the other.
A male-assigned person who starts living as a woman, or female-assigned person who starts living as a man, can still be located within the gender binary that shapes our world. By contrast, non-binary people are sitting on the sidelines, thumbing their nose at the whole endeavour. In practice, this makes daily life an uphill battle. Although the entire TGD community suffer elevated rates of mental illness and distress, research suggests that non-binary people experience particularly poor health outcomes. A British study of trans youth, published in 2019, found that non-binary participants “experienced significantly more anxiety and depression and had significantly lower self-esteem than the binary group”. The study concluded that being non-binary in a binary world comes with “greater barriers and feelings of discrimination”
When Elliot Page (pictured) announced he was transgender he said he felt “profoundly happy” and aware of his position of privilege but also “scared of the invasiveness, the hate, the ‘jokes’ and the violence” often thrown at transgender people.
Non-binary genders are also associated with higher rates of self-harm and substance abuse, according to Australian research from 2020. The same study found that 70 per cent of non-binary people experienced depression, compared to 52 per cent of binary trans people. On almost every measure, non-binary people have a rough ride. This is not to minimise the very real struggles of binary trans people, but rather to acknowledge that non-binary folk experience unique challenges that stem from being at odds with the gender system that organises our world.
But maybe that gender system is the real problem here? After all, gender norms and expectations are damaging to everyone, trans or otherwise. Women are told to be thin, but not too thin; pretty but not airheads, but not so smart they intimidate men. They must be sexy but not a “slut”.
Confident but not aggressive, maternal yet not mumsy. Men are stifled by their own set of suffocating rules. They must be tough and strong, but not remote or aggressive; they should be a “good guy” but not a wimp who cries. A family man, but not a doormat.
For everyone, the standards are impossible and impossibly narrow. Every day is a new test, an endless gender exam in front of a thousand judging eyes. “The gender binary is set up for us to fail. For us all to fail,” Vaid-Menon explains. We’ve all been sold a pup.
Faced with this broken gender system, living outside the gender binary is an act of resistance. The good news is that more and more people are doing so. A poll of 15,000 Americans, released in 2021, found Gen Z has the biggest trans contingent of any generation to date. Nearly 2 per cent identify as trans, compared to 1.2 per cent of Millennials and 0.2 per cent of Baby Boomers. At a moment when the future can seem grim, this is a rare trend that gives me hope for the coming decades.
Maybe one day, before too long, I’ll be able to visit a public bathroom without stress, because the facilities will accommodate all genders. As we look forward to a world beyond COVID lockdowns, I envisage a time when everyone can go to the movies without worrying if there’s somewhere safe to take a leak.
All About Yves: Notes from a Transition (Allen & Unwin) by Yves Rees is out now.
I'm tired of the very word: gender. It does not exist. It is made up to satisfy "feelings". "non-binary?" Means what? Gender clearly has lost all semblance of meaning.
This person complains that there is not a bathroom for them, and that's because bathrooms are designed to be functional. The two sexes pee differently, and thus use and need different facilities. Do the 101 "genders" pee differently? No, they pee like their inborn sex. Use the bathroom of your natal sex and STFU.
What's so dumb is how she literally admits to being biologically female in the second paragraph.
Just like 90% of all other "nonbinary" folk.
Maybe one day, before too long, I’ll be able to visit a public bathroom without stress, because the facilities will accommodate all genders.
Yeah, I can' t wait to see all the buildings on the planet with the 100 and counting gender facilities that you "need".
The only feeling I had reading this article was "cry me a river". It' s a self-made problem and I don' t care how distressed your own doing makes you.
exactly. "You got yourself into this mess, and you can get out of it". Creating problems out of nothing. Someday, they may have Real Problem, and then what? we all rush in to fix that for her too?
Heh. I said "her".
What a load of self indulgent waffle. So you need to pee? Go and pee. There are plenty of fairly flat chested women out there with short hair who don't make a massive meal out of it. So someone gives you a funny look, so what? Gaah.
The challenge of being non-binary - having the right hiking gear to climb over my monstrous ego and self obsession to simply exist in the ordinary world where funnily enough, you are not the centre of everything.
Fucking idiots. Confusing gender and sex. Pretending to be non-binary gender doesn't erase your sex. You are non-binary and a woman.
So she’s a woman?
I can’t wait for the moment we treat being NB as a jokey fad of long past.
'Let me homogenize hundreds of different cultures across an entire continent, and then use them as a prop for my narcissistic nonsense.' So progressive!
Colonialism.